


The Past Keeps On Getting Brighter

by inabathrobe



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, HIV/AIDS, Hospitals, Illnesses, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-09
Updated: 2009-09-09
Packaged: 2017-10-25 20:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inabathrobe/pseuds/inabathrobe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adrian has AIDS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Past Keeps On Getting Brighter

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the [Watchmen Kink Meme](http://spam-monster.livejournal.com/2617.html?thread=5393977#t5393977). Later edited and reposted [to my LJ](http://inabathrobe.livejournal.com/51632.html).
> 
> As a note: I did not do any research for this. In retrospect, I should have.

For about six weeks in 1972, Adrian can barely remember a thing. He attributes it to not enough sleep and never being sober. He can't really remember what he did during the days. Maybe, he slept. Maybe, he pretended to run the company. It's the nights that stand out, each luminous and perfect through the filter of years. He can't remember all the men and women, but he can remember a few of them. That is when he realized. It oughtn't to have taken him so long, but Adrian has always been good at hiding things, even from himself.

He supposes that most people don't go on a month and a half drugged out bender when they realize that they're gay, but Adrian has never been most people.

It starts with a desperate desire to be normal. He usually takes nothing stronger than a few cocktails to soften the evening. It is a Tuesday night. There is a girl in neon pink spandex with whom he is dancing, and he remembers something in her mouth, probably a pill, and her sliding it into his. He has concluded long since that it was some sort of amphetamine. He can't remember anything about her other than her pink Lycra, much less about the sex, but he remembers stumbling home and resolving not to do it again.

That Wednesday morning, he wakes up feeling like hell. He sends his secretary out for tomato juice and K-Y Jelly. He has three glasses of champagne while she is out and, when she comes back, fucks her against the dining room table.

Then, he goes back to bed.

He remembers a particularly good blowjob from David Bowie, fucking one of the Village People (not so good), and young men and women without number. It takes him weeks to give up girls, even though he doesn't enjoy having them. Old habits die hard. He remembers a particularly sweet young man, dark haired, insistent on a condom (the first Adrian has seen in the better part of two months). He has soft hands and softer lips, and he kisses Adrian more gently than he has been kissed in his increasingly short memory. He fucks Adrian as though he hasn't done it very often in the past and becomes incredibly alarmed when he realizes exactly how out of it Adrian is. He remembers the soft words spoken in a half panic: "Are you _high_?" He says, no, of course not, it had been cocaine, not marijuana. The young man stares at him and asks him if he is okay. Adrian says he isn't because, instead of getting fucked, he is getting a lecture.

Dan doesn't speak to him for nearly a year afterward.

The next morning, when Adrian wakes up, he decides that this needs to end. He doesn't go back to Studio 54 for a good month, just to be safe. Luckily, the only thing he is addicted to is self-pity. He delves into his work and tries very hard not to remember.

It seems like he won't be allowed to forget.

When his doctor gives him the sad look that means bad news, Adrian thinks that it means that he is going to need surgery for his broken leg or maybe a blood transfusion. It's 1984; every blood transfusion requires more tests and paperwork than ever before. He had been pushed down a flight of stairs by an old supervillain, both of them long retired, who hadn't been able to help himself. Adrian has had him committed to an asylum.

He smiles brightly at the doctor who doesn't smile back. He tells Adrian as nicely as he can, putting a hand on his shoulder. He asks if Adrian has had unprotected sex in the past, too afraid to ask if the great Ozymandias is gay. Adrian lies and says no, but he has been lying so long that it feels like the truth. The doctor frowns, and they eventually put it down to a bad blood transfusion. It isn't hard to imagine; Adrian had plenty of them during his career as a mask.

Adrian Veidt leaves the hospital the next day in a cast. His secretary is cheerful as usual. They begin to reschedule the appointments he missed. Adrian wonders if he should tell her. She smiles at him shyly, still unused to their simple friendship, to having Adrian's confidences. A few months later, she tells him that she is pregnant. She is going to be an unwed mother. Adrian briefly entertains the idea of marrying her, even though the child is not his, but how long could he be a father for and what sort of father would he be? He congratulates her. When she dies seven months later, the baby stillborn, he feels her loss more keenly than he would have thought.

His white blood cell count is still good, his doctor tells him. Adrian thanks him for the news. Karnak is at a critical stage; he cannot afford to be worrying if the cocktail of drugs they have him on is working. Doctor Manhattan knows, he suspects, but Jon would never say anything. What little of the man that Jon Osterman once was that remains knows better than to tell anyone or even mention it to Adrian himself. They work closely together, that secret quietly suspended between them. Adrian doesn't allow anyone to get too close.

Jon visits Adrian in New York in April. He looks at Adrian oddly, and Adrian wonders if he is thinking about when Adrian is going to die. He hopes it isn't soon. The world needs him a little longer. That evening, after dinner, Jon kisses him. It is very strange and metallic and unfamiliar, and Adrian craves it like he used to wake up craving cocaine. He is the first person Adrian has been with since he found out. Jon must know. It doesn't matter. Adrian needs this.

Afterward, Jon disappears. Adrian guesses that he has rejoined the other Doctor Manhattans in the military base where he and Laurie live. For three days afterward, he can still feel the ghost of Jon about the apartment and inside him. He shivers when he feels a shock of static electricity.

One of the fellows at his internist's practice becomes his regular doctor while his internist is out on paternity leave. He is sweet and perhaps too attentive. Adrian thinks that it is odd that he is still interested, even though he knows. He asks Adrian to have a drink with him, and Adrian declines, but the boy kisses him anyway.

He whispers, "Me too," into Adrian's ear, and Adrian can barely keep himself from crying. He is too young for it, barely twenty-five. They go out for a drink, and he convinces Adrian to dance with him. It is nice, Adrian thinks. Maybe, he would have liked this. He wishes he were younger, so that he would have been able to avoid the disease, but Louis wasn't able to avoid it, so Adrian wonders if it would have made a difference.

They go on a series of dinner dates at expensive restaurants, and despite Louis's protests, Adrian insists on paying. They kiss in taxis and part. When Adrian is particularly upset about a fresh delay on the energy project in early October, Louis comes to the apartment for the first time. Adrian doesn't ask how he got the address, though he suspects that it was taken from his medical records. Louis puts his arms around Adrian and tells him that it will be all right, really. He puts on an old record and leads Adrian in a waltz. As the record turns to white noise, Louis guides their last steps into Adrian's bedroom. Adrian has no idea what to do once they are there. He tells Louis where the condoms are, but he says that if Adrian doesn't mind, he doesn’t much care. Adrian is very quiet the entire time, and Louis has to ask him afterward if he enjoyed it —he did very much, thank you—, but he knows that he won't forget that evening. He won't forget Louis's hands sliding over the smooth planes of his stomach, his soft gasps in Adrian's ear, his lips on Adrian's.

They begin to make a habit of it. It is a nice way to end the day, knowing that someone doesn't think of him as another soul lost to his own promiscuity or, worse yet, a masked hero bound to save the world. Adrian can be Adrian with him, and that isn't someone he is used to being.

It ends with the old world. Louis is supposed to be out of town, visiting his mother, but he is called back to New York at the last minute for a patient's emergency. Adrian doesn't know until he calls Louis at his mother's house. She tells him that she doesn't know what happened to her son. Adrian does. He knows without asking. He wears black for a month.

It is then that the medicine stops working. His internist is overwhelmed, working double his usual hours because he is volunteering in the emergency room at a local hospital. Adrian doesn't trouble him; it is more important that he saves people in triage than Adrian. After all, Adrian has done his great work. He is antiquated and obsolete. This world does not need Ozymandias.

When things calm down six months later, his white blood cell count is low. He knew it would be, but both he and his doctor are surprised at just how low it is. He doesn't wonder if he's going to die because he knows it will happen eventually. He is admitted to the hospital and spends three days there. They are afraid to keep him there too long, worrying that he will catch pneumonia or even a cold and it will be too much. He returns to work afterward. His new secretary —his second since Maria— has already rescheduled all his appointments. He goes to each of them, but can barely remember what is said. The board begins to consider asking him to step down. His doctor finds a drug cocktail that works again, and he tries to make up for lost time, pushing the company to take advantage of the new hope that is flooding the world. The stockholders are thrilled at the profits from the new Millennium scent line.

In late 1986, Adrian's white blood cell count is so low that he is put in the hospital again. They don't think he is ever going to leave. He tells his secretary that he is on vacation and, rather than filing an insurance claim, pays for everything out of pocket. He wants to leave no trace of it. If Adrian Veidt is going to die of AIDS, it will have to be silent. Veidt Industries is using the proceeds of the sales of the Ozymandias toy line to fund research to treat AIDS cheaply in Africa. He cannot possibly transfer funding to a project to find a cure without being criticized heavily for pandering to the licentious, promiscuous, homosexual minority.

Three times a day, a pretty redheaded nurse brings him more pills to take than he can swallow at one time. On a Thursday afternoon —he has entirely lost track of dates— she brings a youngish, well-dressed man with her. He wears large unattractive glasses that hide his face. Without them, he might be quite handsome. He smiles generously at Adrian. For a moment, Adrian thinks he is another fellow at the teaching hospital come to check up on him. Then, he realizes.

"Dan."

"Adrian!" Dan sounds appalled. Adrian is half afraid that Dan is about to lecture him. "Why didn't you tell us?" Dan looks so wholly upset that Adrian cannot help laughing at him a little.

"I didn't want you to know." He thinks that should be obvious.

"How long have you been here?"

"A few weeks," Adrian says. He can't remember.

The nurse tsks. "A month and a half." Adrian shrugs. It doesn't matter anymore. "Take your medicine."

"I will, I will," he says mildly. He takes the first mouthful, swallows, makes a face. Dan looks like he is about to cry. "It's all right, you know. I'm going to be fine."

Both the nurse and Dan stare at him. "Adrian, this isn't _fine_ ," Dan snaps. "You're dying."

"Everyone is dying, Dan. Life inevitably leads to death. Mine is simply coming a bit sooner than it might have done." He can see it in Dan's face: _but I don't want you to die._ It's sweet. He reaches out and takes Dan's hand, squeezing it. "Thank you for visiting me." It is final and dismissive, but Dan doesn't take the hint. He sits carefully on the edge of Adrian's bed and stays with him until visiting hours are over. Adrian is touched. Dan hates him for what he did and for causing Rorschach's death, but he is still here.

He comes back every week on Thursday afternoon. It's how Adrian keeps track of the time. Soon, he swears that Dan is coming more often because the time in between is taken up mostly by sleeping. He has pneumonia. His doctors are worried that his immune system isn't strong enough to fight it off. Adrian knows it isn't, and he welcomes it.

In between two of Dan's visits, they are forced to give Adrian a tracheotomy. His doctors are afraid it will open his body to more infections, but they didn't have another option at the time. Adrian can barely speak.

Dan greets Adrian with more cheer than he has seen in him for a while, and Adrian gives him a weak smile. Dan confides in him that Laurie has returned and Adrian tells him that he thinks that's wonderful. His voice is a bare croak. Dan begins to tell him about all of the little things they've done since she's come back, what scent Laurie wears now, how much Dan likes her new lingerie. She is more deity than lover. Adrian smiles and humors him. He is glad that Dan is happy. Someone should be.

When Dan leaves, he squeezes Adrian's hand too hard, and Adrian has to hide the wince.

The next week, Dan does not come. Instead, a majestically tall Amazon appears outside his room. A nurse stops by and, Adrian presumes, asks her what patient she is looking for. They have a brief conversation that Adrian cannot hear, and the nurse points at him. The woman looks at him, and a look crosses her face that Adrian can only assume is pity. Of all people, he does not want pity from her.

She enters his room, sits down besides him, does not make a motion to speak to him. They sit in silence for several minutes.

"Laurie." His voice is stronger than it was last week, but it still rasps.

"Don't talk, Veidt." Her voice is steely. "I don't want to hear your goddamn voice." She sits unmoving for several more moments before something in her face clears. It settles into resolve. She has come here for a reason. She begins to speak softly, her voice becoming stronger and clearly as she goes on, "I didn't want to see you. Dan couldn't come, and he said you shouldn't be let to go a week without seeing anyone. I said that you didn't deserve anything to ease your— suffering because of what you did. And he said that I ought to see you before I made any judgments.

"And I have, haven't I?" She looks at him, and she looks very sad for a moment, more like her mother than Adrian has ever seen her look. She is, for a moment, utterly beautiful. "And I'm sorry." She sounds defeated as though she has lost because she has discovered that Adrian is truly pitiable, truly helpless, truly dying. Adrian wonders what her _victory_ would be like.

"I can't imagine what it's like to have _Dan_ as your only human contact." She laughs softly. "You might deserve that, though. Anyway, he said to say hi and that he was sorry he couldn't come. He's working at the bank now, you know." She smiles. "His father's bank. We've become so normal now that we're not retired anymore.

"It's funny, don't you think? "

Adrian doesn't. Laurie's monologue is clipped and brisk, and she sounds at times increasingly like her father. When she leaves, he is not sorry to see her go. Next Thursday, Dan arrives as usual. They do not mention Laurie's visit.

Dan comes twice one week. Adrian is confused by it at first. Dan has flowers and a box of chocolates. Adrian smiles at him, mystified. "It's Valentine's Day," Dan explains.

"Shouldn't you be with Laurie?"

"No," Dan says shortly, and Adrian doesn't ask for an explanation. He sets the flowers on Adrian's bedside table. They are pink roses. "Would you like a chocolate?"

"Of course." Adrian doesn't feel like eating sweets very often anymore, but he doesn't want to upset Dan. He picks one from the box, and Dan takes it from his fingers and brings it to Adrian's mouth. His lips close over Dan's fingertips as well. They taste clean and inhuman, and Dan is just a little too slow in taking them away. The hospital staff must have made him wash his hands. Adrian lets the chocolate melt in his mouth. "It was good of you to come."

"I like coming."

Adrian smiles at him. "I know."

Dan holds the hand that doesn't have an IV in it. Adrian wonders if he is going to say it or if Dan thinks that there isn't any point in upsetting him with it. He wants Dan to tell him. It would be a better gift than the roses or the chocolates. "Adrian, I—" he starts, but cannot manage to finish.

Weakly, Adrian squeezes his hand. "I know, Dan. I know."

They sit in silence. Dan leaves at the end of visiting hours.

The next time Dan visits, Adrian drifts in and out of sleep, apologizing when he wakes back up. He doesn't mean to be bad company. Dan tells him it doesn't matter. Adrian is too exhausted to turn away when he realizes that there are tears running down Dan's face. He doesn't want to see him cry. Adrian wants to believe that no one will be affected by his death. There oughtn't to be anyone to mourn him. At some point, he made a mistake. Dan is in love with Adrian, and somewhere in Adrian's twisted mind, that is what's killing him, not the virus coursing through his veins.

Several days later, they tell him that he is going to die.

On his next visit, Adrian is awoken from a dream in which his white blood cell count had risen again and he had been able to leave the hospital and he had had his team of elite scientists create a cure and he had lived happily ever after with— It is the most horrible feeling he has ever had. He looks into Dan's face, and he knows that the doctors have just told Dan. Adrian suspects that they think Dan is Adrian's boyfriend. He doesn't know how to correct their mistake. Dan strokes Adrian's hair and holds his hand, and Adrian curses himself for letting Dan keep visiting. He should have told them not to let him in. It isn't fair to Dan.

He leaves without saying a word.

It isn't Thursday the next time he visits. Dan comes more often now. There are not many Thursdays left. He sits in the green chair by Adrian's bedside. His shape is so familiar by now that sometimes Adrian can see him without Dan being there at all. He sits hunched over, preoccupied with something. Adrian tilts his head to look at Dan. It tires him.

"Adrian, there's something I ought to tell you."

"Oh?" Adrian knows what he is going to say.

"I think I love you."

Adrian manages a weak smile. "Oh, Dan." He bites his lip, but he can't blink them away quickly enough, and soon the tears trickle down his face in uneven rivulets. Adrian is so, so sorry. Dan kisses him, and Adrian can't bring himself to tell Dan that he shouldn't, that he could make Adrian sick, that this kiss could be killing him. Adrian isn't sure he would want to. Later, Dan kisses Adrian's cheek and says goodbye. He'll be back next week. Adrian watches him go.

The next morning, Adrian Veidt dies. It is in all the major papers. His obituaries hail him as the greatest man in a generation. His cause of death: incurable leukemia. There will be no autopsy. He is buried in the snow. Dan Dreiberg wears black.


End file.
